Create these earrings, perfect for Christmas or all year round, to wear, gift or sell, with our step by step tutorial.
Step 1: Prepare the disc
Start by preparing your Silver discs to remove any surface scratches. Place your abrasive paper flat on your bench and rub the blank over it to create a smooth surface.
Step 2: Mark
Using a fine tip marker pen, mark a dot on the top and bottom of the two small discs and the two medium discs. Mark one dot on the bottom of the two large discs. Use a steel pointed punch and a rawhide mallet to indent a mark onto each of the marked dots.
Step 3: Drill
Place your discs on a wooden surface and use your 1mm drill bit to drill a hole through each of your indented points.
Step 4: Anneal & pickle
Arrange your pieces onto a wire mesh and anneal the metal using your torch. Once the discs are fully annealed, place into your pickle using brass tweezers and leave for five minutes.
Step 5: Rinse & dry
Remove the discs from the pickle, rinse with water and dry them off.
Step 6: Dome your disc
Place your disc in a shallow section of your doming block and use a dapping punch and mallet to dome your discs.
Step 7: Solder
Take the larger two discs and place upside down on your soldering sheet. Using spring tongs and third hand, place the ear pin one third of the way from the un-drilled edge of the disc and solder on using hard solder. Once the solder has flowed, put the earrings in the pickle to clean.
Step 8: Frost
Remove any fire stain from each component using Garryflex or abrasive papers and clean up around the solder join, checking that the ear pins are secure. Secure the frosting wheel into your motor and frost the back and front of each disc, going in different directions to create a sparkly effect.
HEALTH & SAFETY
Always wear safety goggles when using a frosting wheel.
Step 9: Burnish
File around the edges of your discs and go over them with a burnisher so they are nice and bright.
Step 10: Polish
Take the drops and polish them to a high shine. You can do this by working your way through with papers and then using a mop and polishing compound, or alternatively by putting them in a barrel polisher.
Step 11: Assemble
Using a pair of pliers, join all of the components together with small jump rings, checking they are facing the correct way and the jump rings are aligned perfectly. Add some heavy Silver scrolls to finish off your piece and you’re done.
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Rachael Macrae